


all the quiet nights you bear

by araki_iasip



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 18:00:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18238340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araki_iasip/pseuds/araki_iasip
Summary: It’s hard for Dennis to put it into words. For the past few months, ever since he and Mac had crossed this unnameable, unmistakable line that they’d been hurtling toward for the past 25 years, Dennis has had a hard time articulating exactly what it is that he is thinking or feeling.





	all the quiet nights you bear

Dennis exhales heavily as he feels the muscles in his back relax slightly underneath the heavy stream of hot water. He had been on edge for the better part of the day, having woken up at barely 5 in the morning, short of breath and only half-remembering his dream. He thinks he had been playing with Brian Jr. in a park that Dennis vaguely remembers from his own childhood, from countless afternoons spent with Dee on a pair of rusty swings during the summer days that their mother would sleep away with a bottle of gin (or wine, or Valium, depending on the particular day) on her pristine designer couch, leaving the twins to find their own sources of entertainment.

In the dream, Dennis remembers hearing Brian’s delighted laughter, chasing him around the perimeter of the bright red slide that used to be Dennis’s favorite, remembers the sun glaring down so painfully bright that Dennis could barely see, the scene sun-bleached and searing in front of his eyes. Remembers turning the corner where he expected to find Brian, only to find his son was nowhere to be seen.

After trying in vain to fall back asleep for at least another hour, Dennis had resigned himself to consciousness, opening his eyes to see the slight curve of Mac’s back, inches away from where Dennis himself was resting. Bathed in the gray morning light, Dennis thought he could make out dozens of patterns in the smattering of freckles that covered his strong back and shoulders. He had wondered, absently, why anyone considered them imperfections, even as he remembered always covering his own with a generous layer of foundation, whenever a stray freckle dared to make an appearance after he accidentally spent too long in the sun without his sunscreen.

Looking down at his soft, wrinkled fingertips, Dennis sighs and steps out of the shower, using a towel to dry off before stepping into a soft pair of sweatpants and a worn shirt from some High School baseball team (it must have been Mac’s, he realizes), before emerging into his bedroom.

He is greeted by the sight of Mac, hunched over the bed, fussing with the contents of Dennis’s navy vinyl duffel bag. He raises an eyebrow.

“Dude,” Dennis deadpans “what am I looking at here? Is this, like, some weird panty raid situation? If you were looking for some action, all you had to do was ask.” He ended the sentence with a playful smirk, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.

Mac snorts, looking up at Dennis and grinning at him brightly for just a moment before quickly turning his attention back to the somewhat overstuffed suitcase, already filled with Dennis’s admittedly extensive collection of skincare products, along with all the other essentials for a couple of weeks out of town. Normally, Mac would tease Dennis by saying that he needed at least three suitcases of his own just to hold his beauty regimen. Dennis, however, knew how Mac liked to watch him sometimes, when they were in the bathroom brushing their teeth for bed or getting ready for the day, how his eyes would linger over Dennis’s reflection in the mirror as he lightly spread his night moisturizer over his face. Once, when Dennis had gotten really drunk at the bar, but refused to go to bed without finishing his skin care routine, Mac had actually done it for him, sitting Dennis on the edge of the bathtub as he used the pad of one finger to softly, softly, dab his eye cream under his eyes. He couldn’t remember ever seeing Mac so concentrated, so still.

“In your dreams. Nah, man, it’s just I noticed that you didn’t pack a jacket yet, so I wanted to make sure you had one. I know you get like, cold, sometimes. So. You know.” Mac shrugged easily, like it was the most natural thing in the world, although Dennis could see a patch of red coloring the tops of his ears. Mac cleared his throat and took out one of Dennis’s plaid button-downs, refolding it somewhat uselessly, before placing it back in the bag. Dennis furrows his brow.

“Mac,” he starts, slowly, like explaining something very complicated to a very small child“it’s the middle of August. It’s going to be warm. It’s North Dakota, not the North Pole. There is literally no reason for me to bring a jacket.”

“ You never know, dude,” Mac plows forward, stubbornly, placing his hands on his hips as he fixes Dennis with his most serious look. “I’ve been looking up a lot of weather forecasts for you and it’s like fucking russian roulette. One day it’s sunny, the next it’s snowing. I swear to God man, it’s like they don’t understand seasons out there or something. It’s fucked up.” He pats the neatly folded jacket lying at the top of the suitcase for emphasis.

Only then does Dennis realize Mac had packed one of his own leather jackets for him, which, although it does somewhat clash with Dennis’s own more elegant, refined fashion sensibilities, is bound to still have the scent of Mac’s cheap body wash and cologne lingering in the lining, and Dennis suddenly doesn’t feel so keen to press Mac further on the subject. Dennis raises his arms in mock surrender.

“Besides,” Mac continues, somehow managing to flatten out Dennis’s belongings enough to pull the zipper shut and flop himself down on the edge of the bed “you’re going to be out there for three weeks, so it’ll most likely be getting colder as time goes on. You’ll thank me later.”

Dennis sighs, sitting next to Mac at the edge of the bed. He didn’t appreciate the reminder of exactly how long he was going to be away. He knew, objectively, three weeks wasn’t a long time, and he had been the one to accept the invitation when Mandy had mentioned the possibility of him maybe coming up for a few weeks to spend some time with Brian before he started preschool. Brian was his son, and he was charming, funny, and pretty fucking intelligent for a creature who still wasn’t capable of putting his own shirt on right-side out. And Brian was kind. Even after it had gotten bad, and Dennis locked himself in his room all day, even after he had skipped every therapy appointment for the past three months, and come home at 4 in the morning reeking of alcohol and self-loathing, Brian, for some reason, still wanted to be near him. Brian was probably one of the only people in the world who, no matter what kind of mood he was in, no matter what new extravagant way he managed to fuck up, still looked at him like he was one of his very favorite people in the world, like he knew that Dennis had something good inside of him still, even when Dennis couldn’t see it. He was the only person who had ever looked at him like that, except for-

“Hey,” Mac mutters, snapping Dennis out of his thoughts. He runs his fingers softly through Dennis’s hair, just pushing it back, before lightly tapping the side of his brow with two fingers . “Everything okay in there?”

It’s hard for Dennis to put it into words. For the past few months, ever since he and Mac had crossed this unnameable, unmistakable line that they’d been hurtling toward for the past 25 years, Dennis has had a hard time articulating exactly what it is that he is thinking or feeling. The strangest part was how natural, how inevitable it all felt, waking up with some part of Mac’s body touching his, an arm flung over his torso, or his shoulder pressed against his chest; Mac’s hand wrapping around his during their Lethal Weapon rewatches, thumb running soothingly over his knuckles. They don’t talk about it, and it’s not something they flaunt in public, simultaneously too different and too familiar for them to define, although Dennis suspects the rest of the gang must have picked up on it to some extent- must know them both too well not to have done. It would be easier to explain, comprehend, maybe if it had been more difficult, had come less easily to him.

That year he had been away, he had missed so much.

It’s hard for Dennis to put into words. So he lowers his forehead, resting it on Mac’s shoulder. For a few minutes they sit there in silence, Mac soothingly stroking through the hair at the back Dennis’s neck. Finally, Dennis lifts his head, stifling a yawn with the back of his hand. He’s hit with the sudden reality that the night is about to end, that this is the last time he’s going to get to be alone with Mac for weeks.

“Wanna watch a movie?” he asks, groggily.

Mac glances at the clock on his bedside table, which reads half past midnight. Late, too late for a movie, really, considering they need to be at the airport by 7 AM for Dennis to catch his flight. Mac looks back at Dennis, studying his face for a moment, considering.

“Sure.” He stands up, offering Dennis his hand and leading him to the living room where he pops in one of their DVDs, some generic 90s action flick. Dennis doesn’t mind. Dennis falls asleep, face tucked against Mac’s shoulder, during the opening fight sequence.

***

Dennis jolts awake, heart fluttering and bile rising in his throat, remnants of the same dream from the night before floating around his mind; Brian’s laughter, the bright bright light, the incomparable panic, realizing he had vanished. On the other side of the bed, Mac sleeps soundly, his chest rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm. Not trusting himself to lie still, Dennis pads out of bed to the kitchen, where the oven clock informs him it’s just turned 3. Only a couple more hours until he has to be awake.

Dennis pours himself a glass of water, and gulps it down, paces as he regulates his breathing, trying to remind himself how to inhale and exhale in a normal fashion.

“Dennis?” a soft, groggy voice calls him from the bedroom doorway, where he sees Mac. Confused, sleep-ruffled, Mac, features softened somewhat from the moonlight pouring in through the bedroom window.

Dennis is still, waits for Mac to walk over to him, wrap one gentle hand around his wrist.

“Okay,” Mac says.

Mac walks him back to the bedroom, pulling back the covers on Dennis’s side and waiting for him to crawl underneath before he climbs in beside him, folding one arm carefully around Dennis’s waist.

“Mac,” Dennis whispers, an edge of panic creeping into his voice. The arm around his waist tightens.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart.”

Eventually, he does.

***

This time, Dennis wakes to an alarm blaring, and to the smell of freshly brewed coffee wafting in from the kitchen. The other side of the bed is unusually empty, for a change (Mac would always swear to anyone who asked that if God had intended for man to be up before 10 am, he wouldn’t have made it so fucking miserable). He dresses quickly, and emerges to find Mac sitting across from a cup of coffee, presumably for Dennis, while yawning into his own. Mac had apparently snuck out early to pick up blueberry muffins from the bakery down the street, and Dennis picked at it on their way to the airport, mostly to appease Mac, who was insisting that the only way to fight motion sickness was to fly on a full stomach, something about an article he had read somewhere. He kept one hand on the wheel, resting his others on top of Dennis’s where it lay on his knee.

They end up making it to the airport just in time for Dennis’s flight to board, which was quite honestly a miracle considering the amount of time that Mac had spent fretting over whether Dennis had forgotten anything in his suitcase, almost insisting they stop at a pharmacy to buy Dennis a travel toothpaste before Dennis managed to convince him that Mandy was, in fact, a human person, who almost certainly had toothpaste he could borrow at her place until he managed to get out and get his own.

Their hands stay linked on the long walk to the main entrance, where Dennis instinctively drops Mac’s, noticing the small frown cross his face, unable to squelch the slight pang of regret he feels at the sight. Dennis has never understood the rules, with this type of thing. Dennis has never had anything like this. Maybe, someday, he will be better at it.

They make their way to the security checkpoint nearest to Dennis’s gate with relative ease, the airport filled mostly with business people in crisp suits, and families heading south to their beach houses for their last trip of the summer, desperate to savor the last few weeks of freedom before they return to the dull drone of their daily lives.

“All right, well, this is it,” Dennis coughs, lightly, the two of them standing there, facing each other, seemingly at a loss for words. “Thanks, man, for like. Driving me in and stuff. I’ll text you when I get in?”

Mac’s wringing his hands, and he’s got this look on his face as he gazes back at him, like he’s taking in as much of Dennis as humanly possible in case he doesn’t get another chance. It makes something in Dennis’s chest ache. He has to look away.

“Yeah, dude.” Mac chokes a little on his words, “Of course. Any time.” He tries to play it off as casual, but his eyes are unmistakably sincere.

“Anyway, I’ll be seeing you soon? Don’t you guys get too used to life without me again.” Dennis grins, very slightly, seeing something in Mac’s posture change, soften, with the joke. Mac gives a small, startled, genuine laugh. Dennis would make Mac laugh like that everyday, if he could.

“Never, man.” He promises, joking at first, his tone turning surprisingly serious when he adds “Not even if we tried.”

Dennis nods, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as he turns to enter the checkpoint, only making it a few steps before he pauses for just a moment. He turns back around, somewhat wildly, making his way back to a very confused Mac, who’s currently looking at him like he’s lost his goddamn mind.

“Dennis, you’re going to miss your flight! What the-”

“Can I kiss you?” Dennis blurts out, interrupting him, before continuing, deliriously, like he can’t help himself, can’t keep the words from rushing out. “I really want to kiss you right now. Can I?”

In the span of approximately 3 seconds, Dennis swears he watches Mac’s face go through an abbreviated version of every phase of medical shock, and just when Dennis is about to slink away with his tail between his legs, and quite possibly begin a new life as a recluse in the woods where no one will ever be able to contact him again, he sees Mac’s expression change into something so reverent, so happy it’s like he’s looking at one of the 7 wonders of the goddamn world, and Dennis thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Wordlessly, Mac nods, and the kiss is a quick, intense, thing, with Dennis clutching at Mac’s back like he’s the last thing anchoring him to this planet or else he’ll drift away.

Dennis boards the flight already dreaming about coming back home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm araki-iasip on tumblr :')


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